| Hardwool |
Are there good ways, rules wise, for an alchemist to bring his bombs where they need to be and bring some heavy damage when they do?
I'm aware of the Grenadier archetype, but it works more like a Magus. The Fire Bomber bumps damage with fire bombs and some favored class options add some as well.
So apart from that, are there any feats, items or else that can do the above, launching bombs on enemy troops like artillery shells?
| SteelDraco |
I'm playing a bomb-oriented alchemist right now. I haven't found much to straight increase my bomb's damage - you're looking at one decent hit against one target each round. Increasing your Int helps, of course, but not much else seems to do much to increase your bomb damage - things that are used to boost spell damage, like crossblooded draconic/orc sorcerer, don't really apply.
Increasing the range of bombs isn't that hard. Splash Weapon Mastery halves the penalty per range increment, and usually hitting isn't that hard (yay touch AC!)
The Explosive Missile discovery also let you shoot your bombs quite a distance, and you'll almost certainly have the feats necessary to shoot with a ranged weapon well, though you're not proficient with most of the good ones by default.
It seems that the most efficient thing to do with bombs is to spread around negative conditions, like nauseated (Stink Bomb), entangled (Tanglefoot Bomb), confusion (Confusion Bomb), and bleed (Scrap Bomb). Right now that's how I play - I don't do the most damage, but it's quite consistent damage, since I always attack touch AC, and I can hit opponents with conditions they're vulnerable to and make them not hurt the rest of the party too badly. Unfortunately the save DC isnt't that great - DC 17 for my 7th level Serpent's Skull character with 15 stat build points - still deciding if I should cheese it out and take Ability Focus (bomb) for +2 to all my bomb save DCs.
trollbill
|
Getting Fast Bomb at 8th combined with Rapid-Shot will give you enormous damage output. You will have to be careful not to run out of bombs though.
Explosive Missile plus Heavy Crossbow allows you to load and shoot a Heavy Crossbow as a single Standard Action. It also ups your range greatly, adds damage from the crossbow and increases the threat range of the attack, though at the cost of accuracy. Combing Explosive Missile with a non-fire damage bomb and an Underwater Heavy Crossbow turns you from being useless underwater to ruling the waves.
Feats, spells and abilities that affect non-touch weapon damage rolls such as Point Blank Shot, Weapon Specialization, Prayer and Inspire Courage should all work.
Some racial abilities such as a Gnome's Pyromaniac ability can up the damage.
Bomb Launchers can also increase the range as will Far Shot.
Remember, your DPR is higher that it first appears due to the increased chance of hitting due to attacking touch ACs. Alchemists can dish out a lot of damage for a class that is capable of doing a lot of other things well.